An Urdd Eisteddfod with a distinctly Meirionnydd stamp is being promised to festival goers by officials.

The week-long festival, one of Europe’s largest competitive events, will be staged at Bala at the end of May.

It is the culmination of three years hard work since a public meeting was held in Dolgellau to invite the Urdd National Eisteddfod to the Meirionnydd district, executive committee chairman Hedd Pugh said.

Speaking as work started on preparing the site for the 100,000 visitors expected at the festival Mr Pugh said: “The local support has been astounding, and I thank the tireless team of volunteers who have ploughed all their efforts into ensuring we reach our target.

“The public across the region have contributed financially to the fundraising efforts assisting us in the task of staging this youth festival.

“With 90% of the target already met, the coming weeks will be an opportunity to boost the final stage of our work. We extend a warm welcome to Meirionnydd during Whitsun week.”

Urdd Eisteddfod Director Aled Siôn said: “There’s a sense the Urdd Eisteddfod is coming home this year. The first Eisteddfod was held in Corwen in 1929 just a few miles away from this year’s Maes and it has been in the district on six other occasions. In 1936 it visited Blaenau Ffestiniog in 1936 before returning to Corwen again in 1946. The Eisteddfod visited Bala for the first time in 1954 and 1972 and Dolgellau in 1960.

“When the Eisteddfod was held again at Dolgellau in 1994 it was the first ‘Meirionnydd’ festival.”

Video Loading

Video Unavailable

Click to playTap to play

The video will start in 8Cancel

Play now

Video will play in

Share this video

Watch Next

He said more than 48,000 youngsters aged between six and 25 had entered the initial stages of the Eisteddfod and more than 15,000 had won a place to compete at Bala.

But this year’s festival will be markedly different from previous Eisteddfodau in Meirion, he added.

“As part of one of the recommendations proposed by the Urdd Eisteddfod’s development group earlier this year, GwyddonLe’s building on the Maes will double in size at Meirionnydd.

“GwyddonLe attracts many youngsters to participate in activities including geography, medicine and biology plus this year will see a special stage for presentations, a designated area for Techniquest and an area for physics techno-camp. Another designated area will be located for creating apps and computer coding on iPads and tablets, thanks to support from S4C and the Big Learning Company,” said Mr Siôn.

In other new developments this year visitors who pre-pay for tickets by phone or online. They can choose to print their own tickets at home and a new electronic system will be used in the Welcome Centre to scan the tickets as people enter the site.

“We hope both systems will assist the organisation to become more effective and efficient prior to and during the festival itself,” said Mr Siôn.

Hedd Pugh appealed to anyone who was thinking of volunteering to act as stewards at the festival to contact the Eisteddfod office.

“We have a number of people already in place but we can never have enough. All you need is common sense and a smile,” he said:

More details about the Urdd and the Eisteddfod online at the website urdd.org/en/eisteddfod or 0845 257 1639